(like the rod stewart song)
i'm a millennial living in the bay area who loves dark beer, the environment, and sewing for the tiny humans in my life. more
All tagged back to school
is this thing on?!
Between the new house, trips, lots of visitors, and a generally busy millennial lifestyle, I haven’t had time to sew, let alone blog recently. however when maya specifically requested a back to school dress three weeks ago I knew it was time to change that.
mk 2.0 (aka my niece maya) is starting first grade, so a new dress was in order!
I wanted to recap my back to school sewing projects and share a few photos of the girls on the first day.
this year my back to school sewing consisted of five projects and four patterns, three of which were new to me.
last but not least for back to school sewing: something for neela banana peela.
okay so technically this little girl is still in nursery school, but I wanted her to have something that matched her big sister's first day of kindergarten dress.
another back to school post!
maya started kindergarten this year and is the third generation in our family to attend the ann arbor public schools. so naturally a new dress was in order.
lets talk fabric selection.
back in may we went up to heldsburg for a wedding. the wedding venue, our Airbnb, the rehearsal dinner venue, and a fabric store were all within 800 yards of one another. combine this with the fact that we referred to the groom as "sargent substance" back in college and what do you get? I'll give you a hint" it rhymes with 'funk maverick bopping'.
it's back to school sewing season!
first up is maya who is starting kindergarten this year. after i saw this post from gail over at probably actually i decided to make her a lunch box.
while i ponder the all too quick passage of time we're gonna finish off back to school week by talking about the skirts i made nora and etta for the first day of school.
since this was etta's first year I let her call the shots. bucking tradition (she's a firecracker my bo betta) she requested a skirt as opposed to a dress. naturally i saw this as an opportunity to try a pattern i've had for a while, but haven't yet sewn: the hopscotch skirt by oliver + s.
let's continue back to school week with what nora and etta wore last year.
the instant i saw the library dress pattern by oliver + s i knew nora and etta would love the faux wrap style. however the back presented a problem as nora and etta are past the age where dresses that button up the back are practical.
at that point i was pretty confident i could alter the pattern to close with a zipper, but when i saw this tutorial post over on the oliver + s blog i had no excuse. after first making it one time as instructed for maya (will blog about that rendition next week), I tried my hand at a zippered version.
it turned out fantastic. (as have both subsequent versions, one of which was the show & tell dress in corduroy.)
let's kick off back to school week with a throwback post to the dress i made two years ago for nora's first day of kindergarten.
earlier that summer i was back in michigan visiting my family and took nora to the store to pick out fabric. we settled on this gradient sprinkle print in pink (for her) and blue (for etta) as well as some accent ribbons.
i came home to cambridge, poured myself a harpoon summer ale, and set to work on two roller skate dresses by oliver + s. since we couldn't find any accent fabric that went with the sprinkle print i made version a. lined in white cotton batiste they ended up being perfect for the first day.
when maya when moved to the big kid room at her daycare my sister and i decided it was time for her first backpack.
vic had very thoughtfully gotten me the little things to sew book by oliver + s a few months earlier and i was dying to try the penguin backpack pattern. but when we found this owls all around print from the nested owls collection we knew a penguin wasn't gonna happen.
